Claiming/ complaining re mid sold (?) FSAVC

dlc23

I’ve done Some
searching online and I. This forum but I’m still not clear on this. 

In approx 1993 I saw an independent financial advisor, it was a friend of a friend who was offering appointments at the school I worked in. 

As a result of this meeting I took
out an FSAVC with allied Dunbar, after a conversation about buying houses and jt being something that I could use to pay off a mortgage. I didn’t think i could afford a mortgage as I was early in my teaching career,

So I still went ahead with the FSAVC as it would apparently be a useful pot of money for later when I got a mortgage of to retire early with. 

I’ve recently been contacted by a company who says they might be able to get some sort of financial
payment based on this
process. 

They have a no win no fee approach, but if they did find I was entitled ti
some payment how do they get their percentage. I understand from my research, that successful claims just look to redress the situation and make sure your plan hasn’t lost any money. Will this mean I have to
fund the payment to the company? 

Should I be considering sorting this out myself, is it easy to do? 

Im of the mindset at the moment, that anything is better than nothing, but not if I have to find the money to
give the company their %. 

Any help or advice would be great. 

Thanks

hyubh

dlc23 said:

So I still went ahead with the FSAVC as it would apparently be a useful pot of money for later when I got a mortgage of to retire early with.

I'll be honest, my first thought is to wonder why the original rationale isn't still the case - you didn't opt out of the TPS, it was a personal pension on the side - which it remains...? More than happy to be corrected.

Marcon

dlc23 said:

I’ve done Some
searching online and I. This forum but I’m still not clear on this. 

In approx 1993 I saw an independent financial advisor, it was a friend of a friend who was offering appointments at the school I worked in. 

As a result of this meeting I took
out an FSAVC with allied Dunbar, after a conversation about buying houses and jt being something that I could use to pay off a mortgage. I didn’t think i could afford a mortgage as I was early in my teaching career,

So I still went ahead with the FSAVC as it would apparently be a useful pot of money for later when I got a mortgage of to retire early with. 

I’ve recently been contacted by a company who says they might be able to get some sort of financial
payment based on this
process. 

They have a no win no fee approach, but if they did find I was entitled ti
some payment how do they get their percentage. I understand from my research, that successful claims just look to redress the situation and make sure your plan hasn’t lost any money. Will this mean I have to
fund the payment to the company? 

Should I be considering sorting this out myself, is it easy to do? 

Im of the mindset at the moment, that anything is better than nothing, but not if I have to find the money to
give the company their %. 

Any help or advice would be great. 

Thanks

How did the company contacting you get your details? What makes you think there is anything to 'sort out' - why do you believe you were mis-sold?

There's certainly no need to pay anyone to do what you can easily do yourself - but before doing anything, have a look at the first response to the query posed on this thread a few years ago (still holds  good!): https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5579537/mis-sold-fsavc

See also https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6295558/fsavc-claim-companies

Ibrahim5

Yes unfortunately I was caught up in that scandal too. IFAs have now changed and become honest apparently.

jimjames

I'm not sure on that timescale if it is beyond being able to claim - others may be able to comment.

I had a FSAVC with United Friendly that was accepted as missold taken out around the same time as the OP - the company actually contacted me about it so I guess they were told by FCA they needed to look at products sold in a certain date range/demographic. Compensation was paid around 10 years ago. I had also been advised to take out a personal pension and leave a final salary scheme so it was a bit wild west at that time.

Ibrahim5

IFAs are always very focused. They would do anything to get their commission.

MEM62

Ibrahim5 said:

They would do anything to get their commission.

What commission?  This practice was stopped around a decade ago.  

dunstonh

In approx 1993 I saw an independent financial advisor
<snip>
As a result of this meeting I tookout an FSAVC with allied Dunbar,

So, it wasn't an IFA then but a sales rep of Allied Dunbar

, after a conversation about buying houses and jt being something that I could use to pay off a mortgage. I didn’t think i could afford a mortgage as I was early in my teaching career,

FSAVCs had no tax free cash available to them in 1993.   There is no way that an FSAVC could be sold using that as a justification.

They have a no win no fee approach, but if they did find I was entitled ti
some payment how do they get their percentage. I understand from my research, that successful claims just look to redress the situation and make sure your plan hasn’t lost any money. Will this mean I have to
fund the payment to the company? 

If you employ a Claims company then you are liable of the bill if your complaint is successful.  Allied Dunbar will not be responsible for any fees you incur through your choice to pay someone to use the free-of-charge complaints process.

Should I be considering sorting this out myself, is it easy to do? 

yes and yes.   Claims companies actually have a lower success rate than personal complaints.      One of the main reasons for this is claims companies tend to go in with scattergun complaint reasons.  Often a list of bullet points on typical complaint reasons that may or may not apply to you.   Whereas a personalised complaint will focus on the reasons why you believe it was missold.       

Firms are required to investigate all areas of a sale and not just what you tell them.   So, your complaint could end up not being valid but they may find another issue you didn't know about and uphold it for that reason.    

An awful lot of complaints about things that happened 30 years ago have no evidence either way.  So, often a decision is made on a balance of probability based on the information that is available.     So, if you have a CMC that has listed a dozen or so reasons and the firm can show that most of those are lies, then you lose credibility and that will harm you in a balance of probability decision as they go with the most credible party.     When a CMC is putting a complaint in, they are representing you and if they tell lies then it means you are.

The FOS repeatedly say that they prefer dealing with personalised complaints.

It is expected that your recollection will not be good for something that happened nearly 30 years ago.   Indeed, a few issues are already present.   Referring to the FA as an IFA is incorrect.  That wont harm your complaint as over half of people who see an FA think they are seeing an IFA and it would be considered poor recollection.   However, whilst your complaint reason is a valid complaint as you have written it and if the evidence support that it would be a missale, it is a very strange one as FSAVCs didn't have any lump sum benefit.   So, is this your recollection that is the issue or does the paperwork actually say that was the reason it was taken out.    I suspect the paperwork won't show that is the reason because it was never possible to have any lump sum at that time.   

You also didn't take it out for a mortgage in place or once being done at that time.  So, it wont be classed as a pension mortgage.  It will be compared against in-house AVC.  But the teachers AVC options were nothing special.   Buying of additional years was still possible then so comparisons on that will be carried out.

So, I suspect you are going to be reliant on another unidentified failure.

dlc23

Thank you everyone for your comments. 

I’m going to did our all the original paperwork which I have in the attic, but will leave it for now and tell the other company I’m not going to investigate it at this point. 

Thank you. 

Pablo7474

Ibrahim5 said:

IFAs are always very focused. They would do anything to get their commission.

Yawn yawn yawn 

Ibrahim5

Sadly it is very true. They would go from person to person trying to sell commission earning products. Oh you need life insurance, critical illness insurance, income protection, endowment mortgage. Just sign here. Have you got any friends I can talk to? They all paid commission for years so a collection of customers provided continuous income. No work needed. The IFAs then bought and sold the 'business'.  It has now been replaced by the ongoing charges scam. Continuous income. Hardly any work needed. The FCA know what's going on but will they act?